All Apes Are Atheists

I have been a proud Atheist for most of my life; then it suddenly dawned on me that all apes are Atheists. In fact, all animals other than humans are Atheists. This is a scary thought, I thought to myself. All insects, birds, reptiles and fishes are Atheists. Even a fence post is an Atheist--a non-believer.

If you combine and average the IQs of all the Atheists including humans, insects, apes and fence posts, the average IQ of a typical Atheist turns out to be little more than a cockroach's.

It occurred to me that it takes a certain brain size to be religious or even superstitious. This is not to say that human Atheists are necessarily dumb as a fence post. Some are brilliant individuals. However, even the most brilliant Atheist has to be humbled by the irrefutable fact that he is keeping company with apes, cockroaches and fence posts.

I, for one, am a backsliding Atheist. The fact that I have something in common with a fence post makes me want to reexamine my beliefs.

Up until recently, I have favored the notion that humans evolved from apes. (If all humans were Atheists, this theory would make perfect sense.) This essay is a reexamination of our point of origin. Did we really evolve from the apes? Or were we created? Or perhaps evolution is a process of creation.

The following commentary and analysis is based on the following source:

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566394_1/Human_Evolution.html

According to the source, chimpanzees, gorillas and humans have a common ape ancestor that lived around six to eight million years ago. Most of our "evolution" occurred on the continent of Africa. Hmmm, this would mean that we shared the same environments and environmental changes as the other apes.

Note that the other apes did not evolve like we did. Some scientists insist that at some point during the last six million years, different groups of our ancient ape ancestors became separated and thus lived in separate environments. This allowed us to evolve differently than the chimps and gorillas...

However, our ancient ape ancestors were very mobile. They migrated to Europe and Asia. Even if groups became separated, they would have eventually found each other again. They would have interbred and kept the species from branching off into humans, chimps and gorillas.

Even if the groups had remained separate after migrations took place, ape fossils found in Asia, Europe and Africa don't have much variation genetically speaking. None of these apes developed an upright posture or a large brain like human species.

Also, keep in mind that Homo sapiens (modern humans) are believed to have evolved exclusively in Africa, and therefore, more likely than not, shared the same environments with chimps and gorillas. As a result, humans, chimps and gorillas evolved in a similar fashion--NOT!

The fact that chimps and gorillas have not evolved significantly over the past six million years compared to humans makes me question our so-called evolution. Let's take a closer look at our so-called evolution's various stages:

According to paleoanthropologists, around two million years ago we evolved into an upright ape called an australopith. Bipedalism--walking on two legs--was more advantageous than walking on all fours. Huh?

Bipedalism allowed us to migrate to all corners of the world.... Excuse me? But didn't our so-called ancient ape ancestors migrate to distant places on all fours? Many other four-legged animals migrated throughout the world as well.

So, other than flat feet, what is the genetic advantage of bipedalism? Why would evolution favor it? Some scientists say that bipedalism freed our hands so we could make tools, and chuck rocks etc.

OK, but natural selection favors creatures that can run on all fours. Four-legged varmints can run faster than two-legged, pot-bellied joggers. Chimps and gorillas have survived on this planet for the past six to eight million years while moving on all fours. But according to scientists, we needed to evolve. We being on all fours wasn't good enough. Uh huh.

Then, of course, there is the matter of our large brain. Certainly a large brain is undoubtedly a genetic advantage. But it does not make sense that it would be a product of evolution.

If evolution was really the cause, then the smarter chimps would supersede the dumber chimps, the smarter gorillas would supersede the dumber ones--just as the smarter humans supposedly superseded the dumber ones.

Allegedly, the Neanderthals and Homo erecti became extinct because they weren't smart enough to compete with us (Homo sapiens). But chimps and gorillas survived. So did a lot of other monkeys. So did a fence post. Go figure.

I think it is obvious that natural selection does not favor a larger brain--otherwise the smartest of any given species would supersede the dumbest of that given species. Insects, having been around for 300 million years, would be the smartest creatures on earth if evolution favored intelligence. (They would also walk on two legs.)

We are definitely special. We are the only creatures who walk upright and have this massive brain that enables us to ask, "Where did we come from?"

As I have demonstrated, the theory of evolution is Swiss cheese; it fails to explain our supreme intelligence and other attributes that make us so unique. The best evidence supporting the notion we evolved is the fact that we are genetically similar to the chimps and other apes. Therefore, we had a common ancestor.

OK, but even if we had a common ancestor, it seems unlikely that evolution separated us from the chimps and gorillas. Consider this: if our intelligence had not exceeded that of the other apes, we would have done just as well as they. We would have survived--that is all evolution ("survival of the fittest") requires.

On the flip side, if larger brains and upright posture were necessary for survival, then chimps and gorillas would have died off eons ago.

Perhaps a voice spoke to one of our ancestors: "Stand tall...be proud...you and your kind shall rule over all other creatures..."

In any case, I thank my god that I'm human.

WP